Impostors Read online

  Col’s eyes drop to his food again.

  It’s fine with me if he doesn’t want to talk. He’s the older of the two Palafox sons, the one who knows French. A few of my grammar-missing verbs and he’ll start wondering.

  Rafi and I have been studying what the feeds say about Col. That he’s thoughtful, a bit boring and studious. He’s never been part of Rafi’s social scene. But he’s still the person here most like her—the young heir of a first family. If anyone can spot that my dazzling socialite act is bogus, it’s him.

  He looks older in person than on the public feeds. His shoulders are broader, his dark eyes sadder, and he’s more handsome too. But that’s just another reason not to talk to him. Rafi is famous for charming girls and boys with equal ease, and I’ve never so much as flirted with a stranger.

  “You have a lovely home,” I say, to fill the untidy silence. Rafi told me to use this when I don’t know what else to say, even though it’s banal.

  Zefina perks up. “You should have a tour! Why don’t you show Rafia around after breakfast, Col?”

  Aribella nods, like she’s giving permission. “An excellent idea. You haven’t spoken French with a real person since you got home.”

  Col looks miserable.

  I share his pain.

  The Palafox home really is lovely.

  While my father’s estate is shuttered and dark, everything here opens onto light and air. Rooms spill onto balconies and terraces, skylights slant the hallways with morning sun, all of it surrounding a tree-filled courtyard as big as two soccer fields.

  This jungle is where Col takes me first, on a path of hovering stones, down through swaying fronds and storms of tiny wings. I can’t tell if the butterflies are gene-spliced or natural, or what keeps them from fluttering away into the open sky.

  Safety drones hover near us in case we fall. The long drop to the ground makes my wrists itch for crash bracelets.

  “Are you trying to make me nervous, Col?”

  He shrugs. “Don’t tell me a girl who faces down rebels and assassins is afraid of heights.”

  “I meant the butterflies. They’re carnivorous, right?”

  For the first time, Col gives me a thin smile. I shouldn’t be making brain-missing jokes. He might joke back to me in French, and my cyrano’s still in my pocket. I don’t want my father whispering cues in my ear.

  But Col doesn’t answer, just leads me down.

  The rocky ground of the courtyard is damp. Pale green lichen covers everything, dotted with red sprays of flyspeck flowers. This is more a habitat than a garden, like a slice of the wild here in the city.

  I wonder if there’s a way from the treetops up onto the roof, an escape route in case I need it. Col probably knows, but I can’t just ask him. He’s standing with one hand out, dead still, waiting for a butterfly to land.

  Whenever Rafi wants to get someone talking, she teases them.

  “For a tour guide, you don’t say much.”

  He lowers his hand. “We’re standing in a simulation of the Reserva de la Biosfera El Cielo.”

  Maybe I should put the cyrano back in. But that was Spanish, not French.

  “The Biosphere of Heaven,” he translates. “It’s a cloud forest fifty klicks southwest of here. It’s been a nature preserve since Rusty times. My family still protects it.”

  “A cloud forest? That sounds made up.”

  Col shrugs. “It’s a jungle on a mountain, high enough for the trees to strip moisture from passing clouds—rain on demand. The old jungles made their own weather.”

  “Now you sound like a tour guide.”

  “I’m famously boring,” he says.

  He also flashes a hand sign: They’re watching us.

  For a moment I only stare dumbly. How does he know Rafi’s private signals? She was taught them by the kids at a private dance school in Diego. But Col Palafox goes to school an ocean away.

  Maybe the signs are universal, carried around the globe by misbehaving kids shuffling from school to school. Or maybe They’re watching us is so useful that it’s the same everywhere.

  Rafi would know all this. I’m already missing her.

  Col’s staring at me now, and I nod to show that I saw his signal. That I’m just like him, a spoiled kid—not a body double, not a trained killer.

  He gives me his first real smile.

  A rushing sound comes from overhead—like a passing hovercar. I jerk my eyes up, ready to take cover.

  “That’s just the hourly storm,” Col says. “The real Reserva collects three meters of rainfall a year.”

  A mist is descending, so fine that the butterflies don’t seem to care. I can’t see the sprayers anywhere.

  “So jungles really do make their own weather.”

  Another smile. “Let’s get you out of the rain.”

  I shrug. “This dress is laced with wicking nanos. Even after full immersion, it’ll be clean and dry in five minutes.”

  He stares at me—that was not how Rafi talks about her clothes. She’d be worried about the dragonfly wings drooping, her hair getting wet.

  “Okay,” Col says. “But there’s something I want to show you. It’s in the original building, five hundred years old.”

  He makes another hand sign. I don’t know this one, but I can guess.

  A building that old has to be made of stone—the walls not smart enough to listen in on us. They don’t have spy dust here in Victoria.

  “That sounds lovely,” I say.

  Col goes quiet again, leading me out of the misting jungle and into a hallway lined with frescoes. More skulls and flowers, a background landscape like the desert I flew across yesterday.

  I’m quietly pleased with myself. So far, Col has no idea that I’m not Rafi. That I’ve never gone to fancy parties or designed my own clothes.

  But we haven’t really talked yet—and now he wants privacy. What if it’s to discuss secret spoiled-kid business, full of gossip I know nothing about?

  Rafi warned me that making friends with Col could only get me into trouble. I should say I’m tired and go back to my room. I’m supposed to be gathering an escape kit, just in case.

  But when I open my mouth to make excuses, nothing comes out. Other than my sister, I’ve never had a friend before.

  And what if Col tells me something useful?

  He leads me deeper into the family home.

  The old building is the gloomiest part of House Palafox.

  Col takes me there through a door with a retina lock, then down a hallway with uneven walls. Hints of the morning sun leak through high, barred windows. There are no bright murals here, just the cool gray silence of stone.

  “What was this?” I ask. “A castle?”

  “A monastery,” Col says, then goes quiet again. He’s still not much of a tour guide.

  Rafi would probably know this, but I ask, “What’s a monastery?”

  “Like a dorm, for pre-Rusties who were really serious about religion.” He runs his hand along the rough surface of the wall. “The monks who lived here took vows to ignore the outside world.”

  “Monks? Like the Shaolin fighting style?”

  I manage to keep from blurting out that I’ve studied it myself. But Col still raises an eyebrow, matching Rafi’s expression when she judges me for talking like a military advisor.

  “Kind of. These monks were more into calligraphy than beating people up.”

  I slip my cyrano back in, give it a tap.

  Calligraphy is the art of decorative handwriting.

  “Wonderful,” I say in Rafi’s mocking tone. “So you’re going to show me your handwriting collection?”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but we don’t have anything that old. We keep the family antiques here. You might find the collection … interesting.”

  He leads me around another corner, into a low-ceilinged room crowded with glass cases.

  The cases are full of weaponry, Rusty-era and even older. Swords, rifles, body armor made o
f metal scales, a crossbow.

  I try not to look too excited, but then my eyes fall on the smallest case—it holds a pulse knife. An original, from the last days of chaos, before the pretty regime brought peace.

  It’s less sophisticated than mine back at home, but more reliable. The sort of military hardware that might still work after a hundred years.

  I reach out to touch the case.

  It feels like ferroglass, maybe a centimeter thick. Hard to break, but not impossible, and we’re surrounded by dumb stone walls.

  The Palafoxes are bubbleheads. They keep their weapons collection in the easiest part of the house to steal from.

  Of course, they think I’m Rafi, who’s never stolen anything in her life.

  “You have some lovely toys,” I murmur.

  “This is my favorite.” He guides me to another case, points at the hunting bow inside.

  It’s not an antique. Nanotech, collapsible nanotech polymers, laser-sighted. The arrows are fletched with smart feathers and have an assortment of high-tech heads—airburst tips to take down birds, explosives for big game.

  Back in the pretty regime, people didn’t kill animals. This weapon was made after the mind-rain.

  “That’s mine,” Col says. “It usually lives on my wall.”

  “What’s it doing down here?”

  “Jefa personally came and took it away. She locked it up, along with my hoverboard.” He stares at me. “Yesterday, right before you arrived. She didn’t explain why.”

  “Who’s Jefa?”

  “That’s what my brother and I call our mother. For obvious reasons.”

  It means “boss,” my cyrano whispers.

  So that’s why Col brought up hunting at breakfast. He’s trying to figure out why she locked up his bow. He has no idea I’m a hostage.

  It’s time to turn back into Rafi.

  I give him a big sigh. “Maybe she doesn’t want you showing off your boring hobbies to guests.”

  “Maybe.” Col’s eyes fall to the case. “Or maybe she thinks I don’t know what this is all about. Your little ‘holiday’ with my family.”

  A tremor goes through me—has he figured it out?

  He’s waiting for me to say something. And I’m pretty sure You have a lovely home isn’t going to cut it.

  “Our parents want our families to be allies,” I say carefully.

  “Exactly.” He sighs. “But you’d think they could be more subtle about it. Why don’t you show Rafia around, Col?”

  It takes a moment for the gears in my head to mesh. But finally they do.

  “Oh,” I say.

  “Right. Like you didn’t know.”

  I shake my head. I’m not lying.

  Rafi and I should’ve figured it out before I left home, but we were too worried about table manners and irregular verbs to realize what Grandma Palafox must be thinking.

  “Your family,” I say. “They want us to … get together?”

  Col snorts with disgust. “My family? Like your father isn’t thinking the same thing?”

  I don’t have an answer. My father doesn’t want that kind of alliance or he’d have sent the real Rafia, not her brain-missing body double.

  He just wants to humiliate the rebels, take his cut of metal from Victoria’s ruins, and leave.

  All of us missed this possibility.

  “I can’t believe Jefa,” Col keeps going. “I’ve spent my whole life studying, preparing to help her lead the city. And now she wants to marry me off to some …” He comes to a halt, throws his hands in the air.

  “Some what, exactly?”

  Col sputters a moment, then says, “The whole thing’s medieval!”

  A laugh spills out of me. It’s so much more medieval than he knows.

  His dark eyes flash. “You think this is funny?”

  I shake my head. Aribella knows I’m a hostage, not a guest. But she seemed enthusiastic about this little house tour.

  Is she trying to outflank my father? Getting Rafi into her home, then using her son to secure an alliance?

  “It’s just that I didn’t know, Col. That’s the truth.”

  He studies me a moment longer. Then he starts pacing, waving his arms.

  “Last winter, when the rebels were about to push us out of the ruins, everyone was saying we couldn’t let your forces in to help. That we could never trust your father to leave again, once he saw how much metal we’re salvaging. Then suddenly the deal was made, except you came along with it, and no one would say why. Like everyone was playing a game and I didn’t know the rules!”

  “Yeah. I know that feeling.”

  “My mother cut me out of the decision completely. And the most annoying thing is, it took me till this morning to figure out why!”

  I nod. “Hide a plan till it’s ripe for execution and it’s more likely to succeed.”

  He turns to me. “Did you just quote Machiavelli at me?”

  “I’ve been reading him a lot lately.”

  Col looks me up and down, and I realize that I’m standing wrong. Not with Rafi’s ballet poise, but in the combat stance that Naya makes me hold in classes. Weight on the balls of my feet, ready to fight.

  “You’re not what I’d thought you’d be, Rafia.”

  I should say something to contradict Col. Act like my sister on the newsfeeds—imperious, bratty, always finding weaknesses and nipping at them.

  But instead I ask, “How do you mean?”

  “Your parties. Your temper tantrums. I was expecting a bubblehead socialite, frankly.”

  I stare at him, a little offended for Rafi. She’s no bubblehead, except when she’s pretending. She was the one who got me reading Machiavelli.

  But it’s also flattering, because Col isn’t seeing Rafi—he’s seeing me. At least, the parts of me that are poking out of my disguise.

  The whole thing makes me dizzy.

  But dizzy Frey doesn’t know what to say, so I let sarcastic Rafi take over. “Sorry to disappoint you, Col. I’ll try to be more bubbleheaded.”

  “Trust me, it’s a relief. Especially if my family’s going to keep throwing us together.”

  Right, they are. And Col’s already realized that I’m not the Rafi everyone sees on the feeds—he’s smart enough to figure out more. A friendship with him is risky.

  But there are also advantages. He spotted something that even my big sister missed—the Palafoxes are seeking an alliance of blood.

  I need someone who can tell me how this family thinks.

  “Forget our parents,” I say. “Let’s make our own alliance.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “Something short of marriage, I presume?”

  That makes me laugh. “Way short. We don’t even have to like each other, if we don’t want to.”

  “So I don’t have to be your tour guide?”

  I nod, and in a fit of brilliance reply, “And I don’t have to be your French study partner!”

  “Comme il faut,” he says.

  As is proper, my father’s voice translates.

  I smile. “It’s decided, then. We’re allies.”

  He holds out his hand. “Not pawns for our families.”

  We shake on it. But it feels like a promise I can’t keep.

  I was born to be a pawn.

  A few days after my arrival, Col takes me out to see his city.

  I’m excited to be outside. Until now it’s all been formal dinners with the dignitaries of Victoria, lunches with the Palafoxes. Stilted conversation and too much rich food for calorie purgers to burn off. What I need is a good training session with Naya, but a long hike in the city will do.

  Col and I walk on the street like randoms. No body armor, just half a dozen wardens blending into the crowd around us. A single drone hovers up among the pigeons. It’s probably only there to make sure I don’t run.

  The weird thing is, I’m more free as a hostage here than as a second daughter back home. House Palafox has no special corridors or elevators. No spy
dust in the air.

  I’ve always wanted to feel what it was like in Rafi’s skin, but this is something she’s never done—walking down a street with normal people at arm’s length.

  They mostly ignore us, but a few walk straight past the wardens to introduce themselves to Col, the first son of the city. He jokes effortlessly with them, using the same banter over and over, managing to sound each time like the words just popped into his head.

  Naya warned me that in Victoria I might be exposed like this. A lot of cities work this way—the wealthy and powerful walking freely among randoms. But it’s strange to see it in real life.

  It makes me twitchy. Like everyone can see through my disguise.

  Col acts like it’s perfectly natural, of course. And the people of Victoria seem to adore their first son.

  They ask about his schoolwork, his botany, his archery. All the reasons that my sister’s friends ignore him—his studiousness, his boring hobbies—are celebrated here.

  Which is odd, because Victoria isn’t boring or studious at all. It’s acutely alive.

  Kids zip past on hoverboards at speeds that would get them jailed back at home. Drones flit just above the rooftops, carrying not only official cargo, but groceries, shopping, folded laundry, as if every random gets their own air fleet here. And it’s not just the traffic that’s wild and uncontrolled. People seem to wear whatever they want—bright colors, flash tattoos, and surgeries that would never pass the censors back in Shreve.

  Even the buildings are bursting with life. The hoverstrut architecture drifts overhead, airy and fantastical. And down here at street level, the adobe houses are painted in sunset oranges and yellows, or the radiant blues of a low flame.

  But strangest to me are the animals. The flocks of pigeons against the sky, the imperious cats strutting the rooftops.

  I point at a chicken scuttling underfoot, its feathers as gaudy as the houses.

  “What are they for?”

  Col gives me a questioning look.

  “Wild animals aren’t allowed in Shreve,” I explain. “Some birds get in, of course. But nothing like that.”

  “The chickens aren’t wild, exactly.” Col switches to his tour-guide voice. “They’re tagged with transmitters so the city can monitor the ecosystem. They make for good pest control.”